Benchmark indices ended lower for the third consecutive session on February 18 dragged by pharma, realty, oil & gas stocks. At close, the Sensex was down 59.04 points or 0.10% at 57,832.97, and the Nifty was down 28.30 points or 0.16% at 17,276.30.
Ambuja Cements | CMP: Rs 338.50 | The stock was down over 5 percent after the firm reported a decline of 55.48 percent in its consolidated net profit to Rs 430.97 crore for the fourth quarter ended December. The company, which follows the January-December financial year, had clocked a net profit of Rs 968.24 crore a year ago, Ambuja Cements said in a BSE filing. However, revenue from operations during October-December 2021 jumped 2.31 percent to Rs 7,625.28 crore, from Rs 7,452.87 crore a year ago. Total expenses stood at Rs 6,865.61 crore, a 6.7 percent jump from Rs 6,434.43 crore a year ago.
Nestle India | CMP: Rs 17,972 | The scrip ended in the red on February 18. Nestle reported a net profit of Rs 386.6 crore for the fourth quarter ended December 2021, down 20 percent from Rs 483 crore a year earlier. The profit stands lower by 37.7 percent from Rs 617 crore reported in the previous quarter which included a contingency provisioning of Rs 38 crore without which the profit would have been higher. Morgan Stanley retained ‘underweight amid relative valuations’ for the stock. It has kept a target price at Rs 15,712 as the Q4 earnings were ahead of estimates on better margin.
Coal India | CMP: Rs 167.30 | The share price added over 2 percent after analysts pointed to likely improvement in profitability in March quarter due to surging e-auction premiums. Brokerage firm Motilal Oswal Financial Services said that premiums on the e-auction of coal conducted by Coal India breached the 100 percent mark for the first time in 12 quarters in January-February. The country’s largest coal miner told analysts that a price hike is “imminent” to offset rising costs and planned capital expenditure, failing which it will have to dip into its cash balance or even raise debt.
Nxtdigital | CMP: Rs 435 | The stock jumped over 8 percent after the company approved the scheme of arrangement between the company and Hinduja Global Solutions. “The board of directors of Nxtdigital at its meeting approved the proposed scheme of arrangement between Nxtdigital (NDL) and Hinduja Global Solutions Limited (HGSL) and their respective Shareholders – for the demerger of the digital, media & communication business undertaking of NDL into HGSL on a going concern basis,” company said in its release. The board also approved the share exchange ratio for the proposed transfer.
Texmaco Infrastructure | CMP: Rs 60.35 | The stock shed over 5 percent after Promoter Texmaco Rail & Engineering sold 10 lakh equity shares via open market transactions on February 15, reducing shareholding to 0.35 percent from 1.14 percent earlier.
